Vladius

If the movie inside your head is different from the actual movie then that’s that.

For anyone interested it’s actually two scenes, this video until 30 seconds in:
https://youtu.be/mwFVVyHgMAI?si=lq-3MNp4MTfnRdo2

Then this video from 1:06 to 1:30
https://youtu.be/rU_wrhQrDh4?si=jTLMf6YaAJSZxuis

Notice how, like I said, there’s actually MORE lines telling Qui Gon it’s important than dismissing it. The dismissal has exactly two lines, one from Ki Adi, and one from Mace.

I think the vibe you’re thinking of is their attitude toward Anakin, which is consistently there and takes up much more time in those scenes and between those scenes. They actually discount Anakin to talk more about Naboo/Maul in the second video, “Now is not the time for this.”

The dismissiveness you’re talking about also comes from exactly the same scene and has the same amount of dialogue, so it doesn’t make sense to say that what Mace is expressing is some kind of small outlier.

There isn’t a “vibe” that it’s countering, the “vibe” changes through discussion. Which is the point of having a council. It’s a sequence of events.

1. Qui Gon reports
2. They express skepticism at the report
3. Yoda points out that the dark side is hard to see, so they could be missing something
4. Recognizing this, Mace gets more serious, refocuses on Naboo but tells Qui Gon and Obi Wan to follow up - he believes there is a Sith involved and this is their chance to figure it out; he also says they’re going to use all their resources on it, whatever that means

What did they use their resources on? We don’t know. What kinds of resources is he alluding to? We don’t know. Why didn’t they send more Jedi? We don’t know, possibly they didn’t want to escalate the Naboo problem. Why don’t they investigate more in the next movie, or between movies? We don’t know, maybe they did but we’re never told. But at the very least we do know that Mace, representing the Jedi council, does believe Qui Gon’s report and take it seriously. Or at least he says that he does.

“Call it a flaw in the movie, if you want,”

That’s what I’m doing. I’m saying the flaw is the script, or the script for Attack of the Clones. It’s not an indication that the Jedi were intended to be suffering from great hubris, at least not in this movie.

oojason said:

Spartacus01 said:

I think the Italian dub definitely helped in that regard, as it did a great job of compensating for many of the shortcomings in the original performances, making some of the dialogue sound more natural and helping certain scenes land better.

Intriguing point, that.

I do wonder how a good dubbing of a film can enhance or lift said film from the original language - much like the quality of accurate subtitles vs the hilarity of ‘auto-generated’ online subtitles (or lazily executed subtitles from years ago)!

Spanish, French, German, Portuguese, Italian, Dutch, Czech, Hungarian, Polish, Russian, Arabic, Chinese, Japanese. Turkish etc (and not forgetting the Scandinavian countries)… it’d be interesting to see how the various Star Wars films over the years have fared with those bilingual and multilingual fans who’ve experienced both audio versions (or with more audio options - including those early unofficial audio dubs of yesteryear).
 

Apologies for the derail, Vladius - it was just something that caught the eye and got me thinking re the differing dubs. 👍
 

That’s not a derail at all haha

Dagenspear said:

Vladius said:

Their initial reaction is reasonable given the circumstances, and then they take it seriously and care about it. I guess I can’t persuade you but that’s literally what happens in the movie, unless you think Yoda and Mace are lying.

I don’t see any situation in the movie where they ever take it seriously. I think you’re hanging all this on the one line where they say they’ll look into it, where everything else suggests they’re not too fixated.

But how does that mean every sentence I wrote contradicted myself?

Like imagine someone told you a group of guys that your ancestors fought and wiped out in the year 1132 or something are back and they want revenge on you, and they’re working for Coca Cola to coup a government in South America, and the only way they’ve been identified so far is their choice of weapon and martial arts style, based on a single guy. And you have psychic powers that let you sense danger and looming threats in general. And the guy telling you this is a little bit of a renegade who doesn’t see eye to eye with you on a lot of things. You wouldn’t be a little bit skeptical? You wouldn’t think Coca Cola overthrowing that government (your existing assignment) is a bigger deal than the details of a single hitman they have working for them? Obviously Star Wars operates on much larger timescales in regard to the Republic, but still.

We’re now debating the idea of what we would do and what we should do. I don’t think that changes anything about whether or not it’s arrogant.

“but they themselves don’t think it”

“Go with the Queen to Naboo and discover the identity of the dark warrior. This is the clue we need to unravel the mystery of the Sith.” - Mace Windu

They send two and no one else.

Okay, so you agree Mace said they were interested and taking it seriously, but now you’re just saying that he’s lying. I don’t think so, but that’s at least more consistent with pride than what you were saying before, which is that they verbally denied it and said they weren’t interested or taking it seriously. I think you just forgot what was said in the scene until I posted it. It’s not a single line, it’s the entire scene and Qui Gon’s funeral scene. Even if it was just the one line, that’s the line that defines what is happening in the movie.

Side Character A - “We can’t go that way, a snow storm came in.”
Side Character B - “We’ll go this way instead.”

(they go somewhere offscreen while the main characters follow the main plot)

You - “They didn’t go that way. There’s only a single line in the movie where they say that they were going that way!”

I’m not talking about what we would do or what we should do, that’s what you’re doing by saying “they should have sent more than two guys.” I’m saying skepticism in that situation isn’t arrogance, it’s a very reasonable reaction given what they know. The purpose of the example is to help you get in the frame of mind where you understand that concept.

Again, sending two is DUMB, not proud. And it’s right there, the point is to discover his identity in case he shows up, not to fight him to the death, which would be counterproductive for finding out who he is. They don’t know exactly how the whole battle is going to play out.

I have no issue saying that aspects of the movies are masterful. The John Williams score, the sound design, some of the visual design, costuming, and props, some of the sets, some of the choreography, and some of the performances especially Ewan McGregor and Ian McDiarmid.

But people take all of those things out of context and pretend they’re the whole thing. Duel of the Fates isn’t a fart joke or Jar Jar babbling. Palpatine with some nice subtle dialogue isn’t Palpatine with “Unlimited Power” or “Darth Plagueis the Wise was so powerful and so wise.” “You were my brother Anakin, I loved you” isn’t “Chancellor Palpatine is evil!” A cool asteroid chase sequence isn’t Anakin talking about sand or saying very weird stuff to Padme about how she’s in his soul tormenting him. The good CG doesn’t outweigh the amount of weird, blobby, highly noticeable bad CG. And on and on.

Their initial reaction is reasonable given the circumstances, and then they take it seriously and care about it. I guess I can’t persuade you but that’s literally what happens in the movie, unless you think Yoda and Mace are lying.

Like imagine someone told you a group of guys that your ancestors fought and wiped out in the year 1132 or something are back and they want revenge on you, and they’re working for Coca Cola to coup a government in South America, and the only way they’ve been identified so far is their choice of weapon and martial arts style, based on a single guy. And you have psychic powers that let you sense danger and looming threats in general. And the guy telling you this is a little bit of a renegade who doesn’t see eye to eye with you on a lot of things. You wouldn’t be a little bit skeptical? You wouldn’t think Coca Cola overthrowing that government (your existing assignment) is a bigger deal than the details of a single hitman they have working for them? Obviously Star Wars operates on much larger timescales in regard to the Republic, but still.

“but they themselves don’t think it”

“Go with the Queen to Naboo and discover the identity of the dark warrior. This is the clue we need to unravel the mystery of the Sith.” - Mace Windu

Spartacus01 said:

I agree with most of what you said. However, I also think you’re exaggerating a bit. The way you put it makes it sound as though there were virtually no Prequel fans between 2005 and 2018, and everyone who claimed to hate the movies genuinely felt that way. But that’s simply not true. Even between 2005 and 2018, there were plenty of people who enjoyed the Prequels to varying degrees, and not everyone who claimed to hate the movies genuinely hated them. The situation was much more nuanced.

You have to keep in mind that when trashing or making fun of something becomes popular, people tend to jump on the bandwagon, even if their public opinions don’t entirely reflect what they actually think. Teenagers and young adults are especially susceptible to following trends and conforming to the majority opinion. I’ve personally read plenty of comments online from people saying things like, “When I was a teen, I used to trash the movies and talk shit about them, but I didn’t actually dislike them all that much.” I’m not saying these people were the majority, but they certainly existed, and pretending otherwise is just as wrong as pretending the Prequels were universally loved.

Also, I think a lot of the extremism you see among some Prequel fans today is a reaction to the extremism displayed by certain hardcore OT fans back then. I wasn’t around at the time, but I’ve talked to plenty of people who lived through that era, and they’ve all told me that the atmosphere on many online forums and websites was unbearable. If you said anything positive about the Prequels, people would jump down your throat, insist that the movies were garbage and treat the Original Trilogy like it was the second coming of Christ, downplaying its genuine flaws in the process. Obviously, this doesn’t mean everyone who disliked the Prequels was being unreasonable, but there was definitely a toxic side to the discourse that made it difficult to have a balanced discussion about the movies.

So, again, I think the Prequel revisionism you mentioned is, to a significant extent, a reaction to the hostility that dominated much of the online Star Wars community for nearly a decade. Some fans have overcorrected and gone too far in the opposite direction, and I agree that pretending the Prequels were universally beloved from the beginning is inaccurate. But I also think it’s important to understand where this reaction came from. You can’t spend years treating an entire trilogy and its fans as a joke and then act surprised when some of those fans eventually push back against that narrative.

No there were definitely fans. I was certainly one. I saw Phantom Menace for my birthday and had a blast, I had a lot of toys including Jar Jar ones. I was so hyped for AotC I could barely focus at school that day. I watched episode 3 in theaters maybe 5 or 6 times. Together with the expanded universe stuff it was a significant part of my life. As I got older I started to notice more and more things that annoyed me. And I was never under the impression that they were better than the original trilogy in any way, other than some of the action sequences being more fast paced. I still think the original trilogy is nearly perfect.

And kind of what I was alluding to was that people were more ambivalent than anyone really lets on. Most people really liked certain aspects even though they hated others. Darth Maul being one example of a huge cultural icon, a very unique character design that you would see everywhere on T shirts, in cosplays, in art, etc. The Phantom Edit was basically the consensus, keep most of the movie but discard those little things that ruin it. The problem is that by AotC the entire whiny teen Anakin character (unfairly blamed on Hayden but still there) is baked into the plot so there’s very little you can ignore about it. By episode 3 he was still heavily criticized, but the spectacle and darkness of the movie was so great that people were more forgiving.

Like you said, an overcorrection. But I wouldn’t say that this is a backlash against those people in the early 2000s, because a lot of people weren’t even around for that. Like I mentioned, it’s taking on a weird flavor of generational warfare where young people assert that their Nostalgia is better than someone else’s Nostalgia. Somehow more pure, more earnest, less spiteful, less cynical. Teens and young adults now aren’t pissed off specifically at George W. Bush, or Obama, or the Iraq war, or hipsters, or any of that, even if they would be if they were aware of what was going on during that time. It’s just so far removed from their experience that they can only digest it through “people older than me screwed everything up, and the details don’t matter.”

There’s no avoiding it, the prequels are very popular now. Probably more than the original trilogy. However you feel about this, the most annoying part to me is the amount of straight up falsehoods people spread about the movies, what it was like when they came out, and the reasons why they’re more popular now.

Here are some of the tropes I’ve seen on twitter, youtube, and elsewhere:
*The prequels were never unpopular, that was a small minority of angry fans (virgin basement dweller living with mom stereotype etc.) and the vast majority of people loved them

*Love for the original trilogy is just nostalgia and they’re actually bad

*Various copes about the dialogue’s quality: “Lucas is the king of wooden dialogue”, “not all dialogue needs to be naturalistic, it’s more theatrical”, “it’s like Flash Gordon”, “that’s how real teenagers talk”, “the original trilogy was just as bad”

*Millennials and Gen X hated the movies because they love irony and Marvel humor and there’s no one mugging the camera like Jim from The Office, and Gen Z is here to save us with sincerity

*People that don’t like them just don’t understand them, don’t understand politics, don’t understand Anakin’s character, don’t grasp why XY quality is “genius”

*Posting highlights from Duel of the Fates and the Obi Wan/Anakin duel out of context and saying “I can’t believe people saw this in 1999/2005 and thought it sucked???” as though there’s nothing else in the movies, as engagement bait

A lot of this comes from people that weren’t even alive at the time, or were too young to know what actually happened, lecturing everyone else on events well within living memory. (Star Wars is much less serious but I’ve also experienced this with 9/11.)

Even if you’re a huge prequel fan there’s no reason to be delusional about reality or make things up.

The prequels were considered a joke in pop culture for a good while. People enjoyed the lightsaber duels, Obi Wan, Darth Maul, the podrace, and some of the more toyetic design elements like the ships and costumes, but they despised Jar Jar, kid Anakin, and the Anakin/Padme romance. I remember adults talking about them, I remember making fun of them (even as a kid who really liked them generally), I remember seeing and hearing about it on TV and the radio. I was even reading a manga from that era the other day and the author was cracking jokes about Anakin/Padme in the notes. This was everybody including kids, teens, young adults, married couples, and not some kind of broad incel stereotype.

It was not only childhood nostalgia; people that were adults when the original trilogy came out had similar criticisms across the board, from a filmmaking standpoint. As much as I love the ewoks and I’m fine with them, there was a lot of hate for the ewoks and they were seen as a prelude for what came later with the prequels. The original trilogy’s dialogue was seen as cheesy at times, but the banter between Luke, Han, and Leia was considered excellent and well within the quality standards of what people expected. Not to mention extremely memorable lines from Obi Wan, Yoda, Vader, and Palpatine that are quoted still to this day.

The prequels have a lot of lines that are quoted just as often now, but it’s because they’re memes. Even the supposedly sincerity-loving zoomers see the prequels as a nonstop joke fest filled with Hello Theres (not even sure if they know that’s an OT reference) and Darth Plagueis the Wise and Unlimited Powers and I Hate Sands. They aren’t remembered for being profound, they’re remembered for being silly. It isn’t sincerity, it’s just flopping from “I hate this” to “so bad it’s good” to “it’s good because it’s funny.” It’s the most ironic humor you’ll ever get.

There’s also the context of the Special Editions coming out in 1997 just before. Usually this is addressed with videos smugly going “are the changes reeeeeeally that bad?” and pretending some of the changes don’t exist so they can talk up some of the effects shots. But yes, some of the changes really were that bad, hence why this site exists. The added CG and tampering was unnecessary, which is why the prequels coming out right after gave the feeling that the whole series was some kind of tech demo. If you weren’t alive in 97 or 99, and all you’ve known your entire life is almost completely CG movies of wildly varying quality, there’s no way you could fully understand this and what it meant.

How do you guys address this? Do you just ignore it and move on? Do you have any videos you point people to? I’m guessing most of you probably think it’s a fool’s errand and it’s not important, but for everyone else, what’s your take?

Dagenspear said:

Vladius said:

Every sentence you write is contradicting yourself.

Yoda and Mace are the top 2 guys of the entire organization. They’re the ones with the most (almost only?) onscreen speaking roles in scenes where the council actually talks. If they’re not the issue then who are you talking about? Ki Adi?

Yes, exactly, they send them specifically to figure out the Sith. Mace says they’re going to use all their resources on it, and he says they will discover Maul’s identity. So clearly they were not “barely concerned.”

How are any of the sentences I wrote a contradiction?

I don’t think I stated that any individual jedi was an issue. I moreso referred to the idea of the jedi’s arrogance, and that I think that didn’t necessarily make them bullheaded or pompous, more barely concerned, or lax or lack of a better term, to me.

And I think if they were so concerned about the idea of a sith, sending 1 jedi and a padawan wasn’t a showcase of it, to me. But I also think them sending Qui and Obi were more about the Naboo issue than the sith thing as a whole. To be specific, your quote doesn’t read as them “caring a lot” to me, more an acknowledgement of a possibility and willingness to pursue seeking an answer. Like I said, not, to me, a reading of pompousness or bullheadedness. I said before I think it’s a bit more generous read of them, to me, that they simply refused to accept the notion but wanted to find out anyway just in case, though perhaps that was a bit harsher than I may have intended.

You’re getting to my point, which is that Out of Universe, we know that they don’t end up following up on Darth Maul or the Sith very well. In Universe, with what is actually depicted and said in The Phantom Menace, they do care and they will follow up. You’re reading it in retroactively that Mace doesn’t actually mean what he says there, and then interpreting that as proud or aloof (I don’t care how you phrase it, please don’t repeat the phrase about bullheaded or pompous.) But that’s an Out of Universe judgment after Lucas chose not to put certain things in the following movies, not an outlook of the characters in this movie.

Likewise Out of Universe we say that it was dumb to only send Qui Gon and Obi Wan to potentially fight Darth Maul because Out of Universe we know exactly what happens next, and because we like to play backseat driver. But it was just that, dumb, not uncaring. Tactically incompetent. In Universe, the motivation wasn’t “nah let’s get Qui Gon and Obi Wan killed, who cares”, it’s some combination of “let’s treat this political situation carefully” and “they’re very capable Jedi, they can handle this.” It’s obviously considered still part of the Naboo situation which is probably why they don’t want to escalate it to a holy war right away, sight unseen.

I don’t believe that that’s your real opinion, but it is amusing

Connor MacLeod said:

I think the folks at Red Letter Media are comedic geniuses and absolutely hilarious.

However, as far as real film criticism goes these guys are incredibly inconsistent to the point where I dismiss the intended “true criticisms” as nonsense and can’t take them seriously whatsoever. For instance, they hate Rogue One but loved Force Awakens which is just baffling to me. They hate the prequels but loved The Acolyte and liked Kenobi (another absurdity).

And even outside of Star Wars I find some of their opinions to be ridiculous. I remember reading on their Facebook page that they thought the original Alien was boring. That’s when I completely dismissed that channel as far as film criticism goes. RLM are just a bunch of clowns to me, so i will oblige them and laugh. I view these guys as comedians and don’t take their criticism seriously whatsoever. Sometimes I think these guys don’t even know what they like and just try to be contrarian on purpose for laughs and to be controversial. I absolutely love their Nerd Crew videos. And all the people that think their humor has “aged poorly” or is “sexism” are why comedy is dead today. None of you would be saying that if the genders were reversed and they were women making fun of male stereotypes. Instead it would be “empowering.”

Liking The Force Awakens made sense at the time because it seemed to address Mike’s criticisms about the prequels directly. There’s rumors and speculation that they actually had influence over JJ Abrams via Simon Pegg being a fan of the prequel reviews. It has the kind of frantic fast paced energy that Mike said he liked from the Abrams Trek movies, it has new characters, and as another example the lightsaber duels are a little bit more restrained - a snowy forest instead of a constantly exploding volcano world, without a lot of unnecessary flips and spins. Sure it was derivative and played on the rebels vs. empire stuff, but before the bottom fell out, you could see TFA actually going somewhere in the next movie.

Rogue One on the other hand was simultaneously dour and almost entirely nostalgia based. Jyn Erso is still not a compelling character, neither are the two Chinese guys, and as of Rogue One (not taking into account anything from Andor) neither is Cassian. K2 is funny and that’s it. Everything they criticized in that review is still true even if you like the ending battle and the Star Wars Battlefront Vader segment.

As for Kenobi and Acolyte yeah they completely lost the plot and went crazy. I think with those it’s as simple as Mike and Rich liking Star Trek so much. The cheap sets and episodic TV format remind them of older TV shows, which they find charming. They definitely have very questionable taste with a lot of other things too. Unfortunately they’ve grown to resemble what they were making fun of with the Nerd Crew.

Dagenspear said:

Vladius said:

They actually care a lot. I found the IMDB transcript.

“Ki-Adi-Mundi: Impossible. The Sith have been extinct for a millennium.
Mace Windu: I do not believe the Sith could have returned without us knowing.
Yoda: Ah, hard to see the dark side is.
Mace Windu: We will use all our resources to unravel this mystery. We will discover the identity of your attacker. May the Force be with you.”

This isn’t refusing to accept it. Yoda in effect says “maybe we missed something,” then Mace says they’re going to use ALL their resources on it.

Why don’t they? Presumably Qui Gon and Obi Wan have their fight with Maul before the council’s resources would matter, which would make sense because that’s only in like a few days, if that, and the Sith have been in hiding a thousand years. Maybe they could have sent more Jedi in case Maul came out of hiding, but they didn’t want to destabilize the political situation further by making it look like the Jedi were Naboo’s private army. Of course a lot of viewers criticize them for that kind of thing too, but that’s the opposite of arrogance, if anything it’s the refusal to assert themselves.

Why don’t we get any follow up on it and what they’re doing to look for the other Sith? Ask Lucas on that one. Maybe something else completely offscreen that went nowhere. That’s why I’m criticizing the script and lack of continuity between the movies, instead of saying this was the Jedi being “arrogant.” They’re being dumb, not proud.

I didn’t say they didn’t care at all in that paragraph.

I didn’t point to Yoda as the issue here.

Within the movie, what we see is they send Qui and Obi to Naboo with the idea of unraveling the mystery of the sith. Like I said, I didn’t say they were bullheaded or pompous. Barely concerned moreso. I think your reading of arrogance moreso seems to align with the idea that they’d be overly dismissive. I don’t necessarily think that.

Every sentence you write is contradicting yourself.

Yoda and Mace are the top 2 guys of the entire organization. They’re the ones with the most (almost only?) onscreen speaking roles in scenes where the council actually talks. If they’re not the issue then who are you talking about? Ki Adi?

Yes, exactly, they send them specifically to figure out the Sith. Mace says they’re going to use all their resources on it, and he says they will discover Maul’s identity. So clearly they were not “barely concerned.”

Dagenspear said:

Vladius said:

You cut out the part where they literally told Qui Gon to investigate it further and that they’re going to help, does that count as “pondering the possibility?”

With no real assistance or back up. I think it’s a bit more generous read of them, to me, that they simply refused to accept the notion but wanted to find out anyway just in case. But like I said, being arrogant, for me, doesn’t mean they’d be entirely bullheaded or overly pompous.

They actually care a lot. I found the IMDB transcript.

“Ki-Adi-Mundi: Impossible. The Sith have been extinct for a millennium.
Mace Windu: I do not believe the Sith could have returned without us knowing.
Yoda: Ah, hard to see the dark side is.
Mace Windu: We will use all our resources to unravel this mystery. We will discover the identity of your attacker. May the Force be with you.”

This isn’t refusing to accept it. Yoda in effect says “maybe we missed something,” then Mace says they’re going to use ALL their resources on it.

Why don’t they? Presumably Qui Gon and Obi Wan have their fight with Maul before the council’s resources would matter, which would make sense because that’s only in like a few days, if that, and the Sith have been in hiding a thousand years. Maybe they could have sent more Jedi in case Maul came out of hiding, but they didn’t want to destabilize the political situation further by making it look like the Jedi were Naboo’s private army. Of course a lot of viewers criticize them for that kind of thing too, but that’s the opposite of arrogance, if anything it’s the refusal to assert themselves.

Why don’t we get any follow up on it and what they’re doing to look for the other Sith? Ask Lucas on that one. Maybe something else completely offscreen that went nowhere. That’s why I’m criticizing the script and lack of continuity between the movies, instead of saying this was the Jedi being “arrogant.” They’re being dumb, not proud.

Dagenspear said:

Vladius said:

That’s exactly what they say though. Ki Adi Mundi says “they’ve been extinct for a millennia,” Mace says “I don’t think they could have returned without us knowing.” They don’t get angry or anything.

I’d disagree with that. Saying that to me is different from being unsure and pondering the possibility. They kinda deny it basically more than not to me. I think it’s not a full blown denial of even the possibility as a whole, but one that I think speaks to their view of themselves and their powers regardless, more a dismissive view of it. They’re not completely blinded entirely, but that doesn’t mean they’re not arrogant to me. Like I said, being arrogant, to me, doesn’t mean they’d be utterly pompous and/or bullheaded about it.

You cut out the part where they literally told Qui Gon to investigate it further and that they’re going to help, does that count as “pondering the possibility?”

Dagenspear said:

Vladius said:

The script says that they’re arrogant, they’re naive and skeptical in regards to the Sith being back (understandable), and you have the Jedi librarian being a little bit arrogant, but everything else is better explained by simple lack of intelligence and poor detective work.

Being skeptical, to me, would be closer to, “I’m not sure.” I’m not saying they’re bullheaded or whatever, but arrogance, for me, doesn’t have to mean they’re utterly pompous about things.

Mace was not killing an unarmed man. It’s impossible to disarm him as he can (and does) shoot fatal lightning bolts from his hands, not to mention his extremely powerful telekinesis. Mace was 100% right, he was too dangerous to be left alive and had a stranglehold over every branch of the government. This was their last chance and Anakin bungled it. It’s a cool moment of ambiguity and internal struggle where Anakin starts out with “it’s not the Jedi way” and ends up with the more honest “I need him!”

Palpatine’s capacity for evil or actions I don’t see as a justification for preemptive action.

I know that’s a callback to Palpatine saying the same thing about Dooku to Anakin, but in this case it was right even if the script is countersignaling it.

Who says it was right? Who decides that?

That’s exactly what they say though. Ki Adi Mundi says “they’ve been extinct for a millennia,” Mace says “I don’t think they could have returned without us knowing.” They don’t get angry or anything. They believe Qui Gon is making an accurate report and effectively say “whether or not this guy is a Sith, definitely investigate further and draw him out so we can make that determination. We’ll do what we can on our end with our resources too.” Qui Gon does, then they immediately accept that Darth Maul was a Sith and decide to be on the lookout for the other half of the duo. Just going off of what happens, their flaw is their lack of followup for whatever reason, not arrogance or disbelief.

It isn’t just his capacity they’re worried about. They know that he controls the senate through corruption. By figuring out that he’s the Sith they were looking for (what Anakin just told them) they know that he had a hand in starting the war, which also means backing the Trade Federation and the Separatists, training Darth Maul and Count Dooku and being responsible for all the people they killed or attempted to kill. And whatever vague business happened with Sifo Dyas. Bare minimum he’s committed high treason and conspiracy to commit murder, and we know it goes way beyond that.

And pretending like everyone has to follow the political Rules of Engagement where you have to be shot at before you shoot back in a situation like this is silly. The Jedi objectively have psychic powers that let them intuit the truth. When Mace says “I sense a plot to destroy the Jedi” and “we must act quickly if the Jedi order is to survive,” it’s not just his paranoia or hubris or some kind of self-fulfilling prophecy talking, it’s literally true. It’s almost an understatement. Palpatine is squarely in the middle of enacting a centuries-long plot specifically to genocide the Jedi. They fail to stop him, and he does. Palpatine didn’t kick off a genocide he was planning his entire life in self-defense lol

The plausible deniability politics elements are there to help explain Anakin’s frame of mind and why he can make excuses for himself. “It’s not the Jedi way,” “I saw Master Windu attempt to assassinate the chancellor,” etc.
Yes, “from a certain point of view,” Palpatine is just a poor widdle member of a religious minority group, who was just SO popular that he was able to maintain power for longer than usual in a time of crisis, and his enemies are just jealous. As the audience we’re privileged to have enough information to know that that’s ridiculous and he’s evil incarnate, aesthetically framed as both secular Satan (Hitler) and literal Satan.

The fact that people want to retroactively blame Mace Windu for this and say “well, you didn’t know for SURE that he would genocide you YET” is sadly predictable, but still insane.

Dagenspear said:

Vladius said:

The Jedi as actually portrayed in the prequels were right about most things, it’s just that they were too dumb to figure out the clone plot/conspiracy in AotC, and they were dumb enough to send Anakin to hang out with Padme completely alone. And then apparently uninterested in figuring it out after that, up until Palpatine did enough suspicious things.

I think the jedi were pretty outright said to have become arrogant. I think Yoda pretty much outright says so. Along with the compromising as shown in the whole idea of Mace acting to kill an unarmed man, and the fear angle of what may be fall them.

Things they were right about:
Anakin was too dangerous to train
Obsessive attachments do lead to jealousy, greed, fear, etc.
Starting the war was a bad thing and it’s good to wrap it up as quickly as possible
Anakin’s relationship with Palpatine was suspect
Their own prophecy with the chosen one was probably misread
Palpatine was too dangerous to be left alive

I didn’t say that I didn’t think they weren’t correct about anything. But that doesn’t change what I think movies show.

You can argue they had to train Anakin and he had to become Vader to fulfill the prophecy by getting close enough to Palpatine to kill him. Like he’s the Force’s sleeper agent. But that negates Anakin’s agency and leaves out the times when he could have let Palpatine be killed.

If Anakin would have followed the rules, or just left the Jedi when he wasn’t happy with the rules, they would have been fine. He stayed because of personal ambition. For some reason modern people are obsessed with the reverse psychology/value inversion where if you ask someone to follow rules that means you’re forcing them to break rules.

Does this contradict what I said?

The script says that they’re arrogant, they’re naive and skeptical in regards to the Sith being back (understandable), and you have the Jedi librarian being a little bit arrogant, but everything else is better explained by simple lack of intelligence and poor detective work.

Mace was not killing an unarmed man. It’s impossible to disarm him as he can (and does) shoot fatal lightning bolts from his hands, not to mention his extremely powerful telekinesis. Mace was 100% right, he was too dangerous to be left alive and had a stranglehold over every branch of the government. This was their last chance and Anakin bungled it. It’s a cool moment of ambiguity and internal struggle where Anakin starts out with “it’s not the Jedi way” and ends up with the more honest “I need him!”
I know that’s a callback to Palpatine saying the same thing about Dooku to Anakin, but in this case it was right even if the script is countersignaling it.

Spartacus01 said:

camdudetenger2018 said:

althought episode 1 should have 1st started when anakin skywalker was a teenager and also should have began his jedi training as a teenager

Personally, I’ve never understood the argument that Anakin should have been a teenager in The Phantom Menace.

The entire point of The Phantom Menace is that Anakin is deeply attached to his mother, doesn’t want to leave her, and misses her terribly when he goes away. That’s the central emotional conflict of the movie. He’s still a child who depends heavily on his mother, so leaving her behind is extremely painful for him.

If you start the story with an older Anakin, you can’t realistically have this kind of conflict. Teenagers generally want independence, want to leave home and want to distance themselves from their parents. Luke is a good example of this: we first meet him when he’s 19 years old, and we clearly see that he wants to leave Tatooine and go out into the galaxy.

If Anakin were a teenager, he would have been more likely to want to leave home and start his own life instead of desperately wanting to stay with his mother. That would undermine the emotional conflict surrounding his separation from Shmi.

then what episode 2 should have had was anakin an almost adult and at the same time secretly still dating padame who tells him that she is pg

and finally what episode 3 should have had was anakin still secretly married to padame who should have alrighty giving birth to the twins luke and leia

If Padmé had given birth while she was still married to Anakin, he would know that he had two children. But the Original Trilogy makes it clear that Vader doesn’t know. He didn’t know Luke was his son in A New Hope, and he didn’t know Leia was his daughter in Return of the Jedi. So this idea would directly contradict the Original Trilogy in a way that would be impossible to retcon. You’d basically have to explain why Vader somehow completely forgot that Padmé gave birth to twins, which makes zero sense.

Obviously if he was a teenager other aspects of the story would also be different.

theprequelsrule said:

JadedSkywalker said:

‘When I first encountered your father,’ Ben con-
tinued, ‘he was already a great pilot. But what amazed
me was how strongly the Force was with him. I took it
upon myself to train Anakin in the ways of the Jedi. My
mistake was thinking I could be as good a teacher as
Yoda. I was not. Such was my foolish pride. The
Emperor sensed Anakin’s power, and he lured him to
the dark side.’ He paused sadly and looked directly into
Luke’s eyes, as if he were asking for the boy’s forgive-
ness. ‘My pride had terrible consequences for the gal-
axy.’

ROTJ Novelization.

Then they also talk about the quick and easy path in TESB movie. Vader took the quick and easy path and became an agent of evil. Described as easier, quicker more seductive. Luke says how will I know the good side from the bad. Yoda suggests calm reflection, and be at peace, passive. The force must be used only for knowledge and defense, never for attack. Once you start down the dark path consume you it will, as it did Obi-Wan’s apprentice.

He was seduced by the Dark Side of the Force, Ben’s words in ROTJ. He ceased to be Anakin Skywalker and became Darth Vader. When that happened the good man who was your father was destroyed. So what I told you was true from a certain point of view.

In Episode IV Obi Wan says:

“Yes. I was once a Jedi knight, the same as your father. I understand that you’ve become quite a good pilot yourself. He was the best star pilot in the galaxy, and a cunning warrior. I understand that you’ve become quite a good pilot yourself. And he was a good friend.

Luke asks how did my father die.

And Obi Wan says. A young Jedi named Darth Vader, who was a pupil of mine until he turned to evil, helped the Empire hunt down and destroy the Jedi Knights. He betrayed and murdered your father. Now the Jedi are all but extinct. Vader was seduced by the dark side of the Force.

All 3 OT films talk about Vader’s seduction. where is it in the prequel? other than in the midichlorian scene in the opera house about plagueis. Is it possible to learn this power. Not from a Jedi. His impatience is more than implied in Episode II Obi Wan’s, jealous he is holding me back. I promise you I’ll learn to stop people from dying, someday i’ll be the most powerful Jedi ever. Well, he was arguably the most lethal and powerful Sith Lord, I’ll give him that, JEDI hardly. He lost on Mustafar, he never won a single duel against Ben Kenobi. Not even on the Death Star. Kenobi let him cut him down. He beat Luke in TESB, because Luke was a neophyte, and not even a Padawan. He loses to him in ROTJ, because he was seduced by the light, according to the Disney trilogy and Kylo Ren.

I thought he’d be like a superhero who turns evil. Someone just, someone moral. The prequel doesn’t show that.

I had this great mythology in my head for years based on what Ben said. The JEDI were the guardians of peace and justice in the old republic for a thousand generations. and the Clone Wars was going to be this galaxy defining moment. its not even onscreen. or only the start and the end. I never wanted or ever pictured Yoda with a lightsaber. Like at all.

The opening prologue of the Alan Dean Foster novel told me an amazing tale we didn’t receive.

ANOTHER GALAXY, ANOTHER TIME.

The Old Republic was the Republic of legend, greater than distance or time. No need to note where it was or whence it came, only to know that … it was the Republic.

Once, under the wise rule of the Senate and the protection of the Jedi Knights, the Republic throve and grew. But as often happens when wealth and power pass beyond the admirable and attain the awesome, then appear those evil ones who have greed to match.

So it was with the Republic at its height. Like the greatest of trees, able to withstand any external attack, the Republic rotted from within though the danger was not visible from outside.

Aided and abetted by restless, power-hungry individuals within the government, and the massive organs of commerce, the ambitious Senator Palpatine caused himself to be elected President of the Republic. He promised to reunite the disaffected among the people and to restore the remembered glory of the Republic.

Once secure in office he declared himself Emperor, shutting himself away from the populace. Soon he was controlled by the very assistants and boot-lickers he had appointed to high office, and the cries of the people for justice did not reach his ears.

Having exterminated through treachery and deception the Jedi Knights, guardians of justice in the galaxy, the Imperial governors and bureaucrats prepared to institute a reign of terror among the disheartened worlds of the galaxy. Many used the Imperial forces and the name of the increasingly isolated Emperor to further their own personal ambitions.

But a small number of systems rebelled at these new outrages. Declaring themselves opposed to the New Order they began the great battle to restore the Old Republic.

From the beginning they were vastly outnumbered by the systems held in thrall by the Emperor. In those first dark days it seemed certain the bright flame of resistance would be extinguished before it could cast the light of new truth across a galaxy of oppressed and beaten peoples …

From the First Saga

Journal of the Whills

The history of the Star Wars Universe was more interesting before Vader and Anakin Skywalker became the same person. It opened up the idea of a much earlier starting date for the Empire than we got. Maybe the Jedi had already been on the run for a generation before Vader tracked down Anakin in the Outer Rim and killed him?

Why is that more interesting?

Really enjoyed this. I can tell they were limited by budget for a lot of it, though I appreciate that they saved the budget for the second half/last third for a stronger finale rather than doing the opposite. The fights eventually reached the kind of spectacle I was looking for.

Things I dislike included the use of superweapons again, Disney’s favorite object kyber crystals again, a droid control ship early on, and several battle scenes where both opposing forces, using ranged weapons, stand 10 feet from each other with zero cover like on Geonosis in Attack of the Clones. The ship and droid designs are neat but a little bit busy for my taste. The animation earlier on and during a lot of the larger battles or space battles is stiff and less than ideal.

The show absolutely nailed the Jedi. No prequel garbage about attachments, no total extermination, an association with monarchy and nobility, engagement in politics that isn’t some FBI thing or The Senate, legitimate differences in opinion over role, adult Jedi joining on from various backgrounds, Jedi families, distinct costumes and character designs that aren’t just variations of brown robes. The Jedi aren’t the side of “no emotion” and the Sith/villains aren’t the side of “has emotion.” The Sith are a specific faction and not “every person who uses the dark side.” The villain isn’t a Sith and the silver blades/empty heart thing creates an interesting third way without falling into the trap of “gray Jedi” or “equal light and dark.” The villains aren’t an empire and they use droids but they aren’t only droids. Rival warlords are more fertile ground for storytelling than another republic or empire. This takes place in the far future but you could really set it in any time period, not because it’s generic, but because it’s timeless.

I see what people are saying about the lack of development for side characters, but I would put that down to the limited episode count, which could also be a function of budget. I’m okay with them being cool action figures for now. Hopefully we get more of this show.

I’m surprised how little attention this is getting. Anime has never been bigger culturally and there’s a large overlap between prequel fans and the type of weebs who keep track of “power scaling” etc. You would think a full blown Star Wars anime would get a little more hype even if people are disappointed by it. I would put it down to a lack of advertising and to the sheer drop in cultural relevance Star Wars has had for many years now. Or the perception that this is just a spinoff and so doesn’t matter to “canon.” I wonder if this had any amount of interest in Japan.

Great stuff. Yes, this is exactly what I remember from when I was a kid. I always thought the re-releases looked way too cold.

I think it’s usable as a tool in some areas, but you have to keep in mind that it fundamentally has less artistic merit and it’s not the real thing. It can never have the same intentionality or creative process as a real person with skill. It does help people who don’t otherwise have any talent or skill to produce something functional, but functional is not the same thing as good or valuable. It can be a fun toy to play around with, but should not be taken seriously as a medium.

No one says that they’re a chef because they can microwave food, even though the food is edible and cooked. Pressing play on a music player doesn’t make you a musician, even though music is coming out. “Oh but I had to come up with the prompts.” Okay, you handed a robot some very detailed instructions. The robot still did it, not you.

In the case of fanedits, it’s probably useful for generating voice lines or deepfakes for actors that we wouldn’t be able to get otherwise. But that’s purely functional, it’s not the real actor and never can be. That’s why it’s best used for small adjustments to tweak exposition dialogue, and so far that’s mostly how it’s been used here, as far as I can tell.

The prequel CGI argument is just lame and hangs on the “the prequels were underrated” meme culture of the last decade. Even if there were a lot of real models and sets, the green screening and CG quality were still glaring problems, especially in parts of episodes 1 and 2. Most of the practical effects in the original trilogy still hold up better. No disrespect to the visual effects artists who worked on the CG. And at the very least, they were artists who had to actually do the work and adapt real concept art.

imezs95 said:

I do understand it emotionally. I don’t exactly enjoy watching the heroes I grew up with fail either, and that’s actually part of why I think continuing the story at all was probably a mistake on some level. Financially, obviously Disney was never going to leave Star Wars alone, but narratively I’m not convinced there really needed to be an Episode VII.

But once you decide to continue the story, I do expect it to challenge me emotionally. That’s something I want from movies in general, but especially from a story as character driven as Star Wars.

And that’s where I struggle with the idea that the old characters should basically be protected from serious failure or painful change. If Luke has to remain the great Jedi Master we imagined, Han and Leia have to remain happily married, and their accomplishments after ROTJ have to stay mostly intact, then at some point I start wondering what the dramatic purpose of bringing them back actually is.

I completely understand wanting that version of these characters. On an emotional level, part of me wants it too. But as storytelling, I have a hard time justifying treating them with kid gloves simply because we love them.

That doesn’t mean I think the sequels handled their failures well, very often they didn’t. But for me, “they shouldn’t have failed” and “their failures should have been written better” are two very different criticisms.

I didn’t say they should be protected from serious failure or painful change. But saying that that necessarily means the ONLY way to do that is to make Luke stop being a Jedi, and break up Han and Leia, is just a failure of imagination.

The stakes can (and should) come from the next generation of characters. There’s nothing inherently wrong with a Kylo Ren kind of story, but the way it was handled was poor. It would be more impactful if we could actually see him turn to the dark side, instead of the story beginning after it already happened. Massacring the Jedi again isn’t a plus to the story because it’s a radical change, because it’s not actually a change, it’s a regression to the status quo and what everyone already just watched in Revenge of the Sith. The Empire returning isn’t a radical change either, it’s a regression to the status quo of the original trilogy. By all means, wreck the New Republic, just do it in a compelling and creative way.

Imagine how much more emotionally compelling it would be if we got to know one or two Jedi characters really well, then had Kylo Ren betray them (or something else really bad happen to them), rather than being told in flashback that like 20-30 people we don’t know got killed.

Of course you’re absolutely right there didn’t have to be an episode 7 and it’s all kind of a big waste. But it’s fun to speculate what could have happened instead.

You can scale up the threat or make it a different threat without tearing apart the existing characters. Keep Luke powerful and consistent, but make him go up against something that matches him in power or tests him in a way he hasn’t dealt with before (no, this does not include a family member going to the dark side.) Killing Han and Leia’s marriage for no reason is not productive and has no effect on the story either way, other than to satisfy bitter people who don’t think happy marriages exist or should exist. If the new Jedi were like they were in the EU it would be a lot better, so I have no complaints there.

I made a thread about this but I think the Cobra Kai show is a great model of how you would do it. The original characters are respected but still have drama and face new problems all the time. Some original characters that were more minor are thoroughly fleshed out and turned into main characters. The new characters are developed through constant direct interactions with the original characters, and the audience cares about them because of those strong relationships.

AI is fine as a tool for just throwing together a proof of concept. I don’t think it should be used to create actual movies or shows, but I don’t think most people here would be using it that way anyway. I see some of the ones on YouTube as fun gimmicks, though they’re artistically hollow and I don’t think they should be taken seriously.

NFBisms said:

Vladius said:

NFBisms said:

Vladius said:
And it does come across as a disguised lecture. The two major POV characters we have (Mon and her cousin) both disapprove of it, with the only caveat being that Mon is a little bit too heavy handed with trying to talk her daughter out of it. The rich person dialogue is very one note, ooh, look how rich and comfortable these people are. The ritual is supposed to be creepy and ominous, and the part where the groom cuts Leida’s braid is given a hard cut like she got killed by a horror movie slasher.

How is any of that substantive as commentary, but the surrounding story elements are overindulgent? There isn’t even really “rich person dialogue” ala Succession in the way you describe - most of the scenes are between the main players and Mon’s family. The juice of those interactions is secretly navigating around the surrounding context, and the fraught interpersonal relationships in that double-context. Hell, I don’t even think the notable Perrin speech is even an outright indictment of him - if anything it humanizes him and rounds out his character. He’s not happy with the arrangement either!¹

It’s not even a real culture to critique, if it’s meant to be lecture (which, again, is still beyond what most media is actually doing sans after school specials). What’s supposed to be hard about this for Mon and Perrin is the “selling their child” part of it, not the idea of tradition itself. Certainly not in a show where those are threatened by a pointedly secular Empire weaponizing customs against its various communities.

¹ I could even keep going with Sculdun as a fun character because he’s not from the world of wealth blue-blooded Mon is. but i digress

If I’m remembering correctly there are actually scenes in season 1 and 2 where Mon is uncomfortable with her daughter being into the traditions, and not just because the boy is involved. (I think there’s a part where she’s singing or chanting or something with a bunch of other girls.) It’s part of the clash between her cosmopolitanism as a senator and her native environment, but you can tell that it’s implicit that the audience is expected to lean more on the cosmopolitan side. Which is a fair bet, for the target audience.

The other implicit criticism is that this is all wasteful and decadent because a war is going on. We have revolutionaries dying in the trenches for a galactic war, while these snooty people think they get to have a nice wedding on their home planet and put their heads in the sand. Again, somewhat fair, but we got the point the first time.

Of course that’s all in there, but it’s not The Point™ is all. I don’t see it as overly belabored because there is so much else going on through it. It’s the means of the story, not the end. It’s not moralizing when the whole thing is so nuanced.

“We will make it clear that no one steals from the Empire. The use of any local custom, festival, or tradition as cover for rebel activity will trigger permanent revocation of Imperial tolerance.”

-Yularen (1.07), antagonist

Which is what the marriage is! A cover for Mon’s financing Luthen, and it is portrayed as, yes, something Mon would rather not do. That Perrin would rather not do. But does that then indict Ferrix and Aldhani for their tradition and customs? Is the show moralizing against those non-cosmopolitan, indigenous cultures? Which again, still aren’t real or even 1:1 with anything. The marriage is a net good for the rebellion, these episodes are primarily about Mon’s interiority, about that family. Those characters have feelings about it, Gilroy definitely feels arranged child marriage is bad. In the main theme of sacrifice, that equation, something needs to be. But it’s just that… an integer.

Yes, the epicureanism is most self evident as a contrast to what’s going on on Mina Rau or Yavin. Of course. But again, it also functions to dimensionalize the characters like Perrin. Joy and comfort, escapism in a hard world, is only human. It’s how he copes with his loveless marriage, which paints a picture of what he would have wanted for his daughter instead. It’s pointedly not a portrayal of snootiness or flippancy. As a lecture, that’s a mixed message. Especially when surrendering to the excess is ultimately how Mon herself can cope with the events of the episodes. There is empathy all throughout the show for why one’s commitment to the cause can waver, why you would choose comforts. The furthest the show ever gets in that lens to moralizing is a call to Try where you can.

This is all just part of what is meant when these themes are explored. Maybe they could have done something else, maybe more to catch up on the gaps like you said, but at the same time - the show already manages to communicate everything in those gaps alongside what it did.

It’s simple coding. Chandrila is decadent rich person/creepy coded, Aldhani is simple rustic indigenous coded, and Ferrix is blue collar working class coded. The other two are sympathetic already because they’re just trying to get by. All the non-Imperial main point of view characters of the show are in the Rebellion. Perrin is specifically criticized for not caring about anything. There’s some nuance there but I think you’re exaggerating it.